Rent Stromboli, Land of God (1950)

Strings Attached, Sympathy Detached - Stromboli, Land of God review by griggs

Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini worked wonders together in Journey to Italy, so I had every reason to expect the same here. Instead I came out baffled by how little of Stromboli actually landed for me. Bergman plays a woman who marries her way off a refugee camp and onto a volcanic island, only to find the marriage is its own kind of trap — a sharp idea, delivered plainly enough that it doesn't need dressing up. Trouble is, I never found much reason to root for her. Not that she needs to be likeable, but there's no real pull toward her choices.

The bigger issue is the score. Right at the climax, she cries out to God on that ash-covered slope, and it should be the rawest moment in the film — instead the strings come fluttering in and drain the scene of exactly what it's reaching for. It's melodrama standing in for drama, an orchestra doing a face's job. Odd, from a director better known for stripping things back.

The premise is strong. Mostly I just kept waiting for something in her choices to pull me in, and it never quite did — maybe that's on me as much as the film, but I still walked away underwhelmed.